1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to the annotation of source code to facilitate source code comprehension, particularly for software development. More particularly, the invention concerns the use of annotation information for source code debugging.
2. Description of the Prior Art
By way of background, conventional software debugging tools allow a user to monitor program execution, check interrupt and exception handling, inspect data values, and perform other tasks that allow software operation to be checked and verified. Using such tools requires intimate knowledge of the source code, including the executable file structure and the function and method names for the program. This is because debugging typically involves halting program execution by setting breakpoints at selected instructions or by setting watchpoints that trigger breakpoints when specified memory addresses are accessed or reach certain values or when subroutines or other sections of code are executed. Thus, when a developer is required to debug unfamiliar source code, he/she is faced with the need to understand what may be a large and complex code base. Existing annotation tools are available that describe functions, methods, or code blocks using source code comments, state diagrams, flow charts, call graphs, control flow graphs, pseudo code, and/or a description of what a specified code block accomplishes. However, even if extensive annotation is available, the developer must ultimately wade into the code in order to perform debugging tasks such as setting break points, watch points, etc. so that the desired portion(s) of the software may be observed during execution.
It is to improvements in the art of software debugging that the present invention is directed. In particular, a technique is described wherein software metadata resources can be leveraged to directly support the debugging effort.